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‘‘The pandemic has exacerbated gender inequality, and has even stagnated or regressed our pace of going for gender equality in the past few decades,’’ says Smriti AryalHead of UN Women China office.

 

47 million

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By 2021, the pandemic will push 96 million people into extreme poverty (living on 14.74HKD a day or less), including 47 million women and girls. As a result of that, the total number of women and girls living in extreme poverty will rise to 435 million, according to a UN Women report.  The study also shows that by 2021, there will be 118 women in extreme poverty for every 100 men aged 25 to 34, a difference that is expected to widen to 121 women per 100 men by 2030. Domestic violence against women is up significantly, as more women have lost their jobs or have to stay home to take care of children.

Three-quarters of the world's 16 billion hours of unpaid domestic work

Prior to COVID-19, it was reported that women performed nearly three-quarters of the world's 16 billion hours of unpaid domestic and care work per day. This number has only risen as a result of the pandemic, with women bearing the brunt of homecare, according to statistics from the U.S. Global Leadership Coalition. 

53 percent of women have had their work hours cut

While the pandemic has resulted in job losses across all industries, women have been disproportionately affected: according to a UN survey, 53 percent of women have had their work hours cut compared to 31 percent of men. At the end of June, there were 1.7 times as many women as men outside the labor force (321 million women vs. 182 men) based on a survey of 55 countries.

Women account for 80% of domestic workers

Women are more likely to work in the informal economy, especially in domestic service, which are precarious jobs with no paid time off or the right to work from home. In reality, women account for 80% of domestic workers, and the pandemic has resulted in 72 percent of domestic workers losing their jobs.

83 million women unemployed in Latin American

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In Latin America, the disparity was greatest, with 83 million women unemployed (up from 66 million prior to COVID-19) compared to 40 million men (up from 26 million before COVID-19).

 

In addition, due to school closures around the world, an estimated 1.54 billion children are staying at home, including 743 million girls. As a result, women's involvement in work outside the home is likely to decline, as they are often the primary caregivers for their children.

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Chinese women are a major victim of the pandemic. Gender inequality has existed since ancient China and the pandemic has just intensified the problem. Although the situation is improving, stereotypes about women abound. For example, women, instead of men, are expected to take responsibility for the household duties. Women have less say in the family compared with men. Women do not have equality in the workplace, either in opportunities or in pay.  Some companies explicitly impose various restrictions on women or even refuse to recruit women.

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These inequalities are manifested due to the influence of traditional cultural concepts as well as China’s legal system.

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Hong Kong, a Special Administrative Region of China, has also seen, to a lesser extent, an intensifying of gender inequality.

 

Women, especially women at the grassroots level, are still discriminated against in the job market. In the traditional patriarchal culture, in Hong Kong this is often under the Confucian system, women are expected to take care of their children after giving birth, and then naturally become housewives, taking care of their parents and spouses. As domestic work is unpaid work, housewives do not enjoy any labor protection. ''I quit my job to become a full caregiver a year ago,'' said Zhang, a 48-year-old housewife. 

 

Even before the pandemic, Hong Kong women are responsible for more than 80% of the housework items, according to a survey by The Hong Kong Young Women’s Christian Association in 2019. Besides,  the difference in pay for men and women for equal work has a wage gap of $6,000, according to the latest report from the Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department. 


 

This site will investigate how the pandemic has exacerbated gender inequality across mainland China and Hong Kong. 

 ‘‘As a whole, I think Hong Kong has been doing a much better job to protect women’s right while in mainland China there are lots of things that need to be done to improve the social status of women, '' said Ellen Ying Zhang, a philosopher from HKBU, who lived in the US for 20 years before she came to Hong Kong. 

‘’I think the pandemic has increased the time spent in private spaces (e.g. home) even if the household has a domestic helper to help execute chores, the mental load and burden of organizing, provisioning, and juggling the requirements of the new normal would affect disproportionately the individual who manages our private spaces, and that is unfortunately still falls on the shoulders of women,'' according to Dr. TAM Dic Sze, Daisy from Department of Humanities and Creative Writing in HKBU.

''Some working mothers find it hard to juggle paid work and the increased care work.  They may need to give up their jobs or are encouraged by their employers to do so. Bear in mind women are disproportionately employed in casual and part-time jobs, which are hit hardest by coronavirus,'' said Prof. Day Wong from Department of Science in HKBU.

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